A Haiku Breakthrough?

Earlier this year I read Clark Strand's beautiful book on writing haiku, Seeds from a Birch Tree. In one chapter he talks about how he kept a haiku diary. After 14 years of this practice, he came home from his nature walk just having written his "first haiku." With that experience, he destroyed all his previous work. I was taken aback by that, but earlier this month, I had something of a similar experience.

On my blog, I have been writing a haiku every week since April 2013. Each Saturday with the “Saturday Haiku” feature, a new haiku goes up. Haiku typically stand alone with no title. When I post my haiku on my blog, because blog posts need a title, I will give the post a title. I will also have a picture to accompany the haiku because of the nature of the blogosphere and blog posts.

When my blog post, “Sparrow’s Feather” went up on October 1,  I realized that the picture did not enhance the post, perhaps distracted from it. On Twitter, I posted just the words and I was amazed at the number of retweets and comments. I then turned around and posed just the words on Facebook and got a similar reaction.

Here are some of the responses to the haiku:

I held my breath as I read this.

Exquisite.

Beautiful!

I can feel the stillness!

So lovely.

This may be my first haiku after nine years of attempts. I’m not saying I'll destroy my previous work, but I will return to this one to try to see what made it work.

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